Episode Details
Back to EpisodesHow To Plan The Week in 45 Minutes or Less
Description
This week, the question is on how to reduce the time it takes to complete a solid weekly planning session.
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Script | 349
Hello, and welcome to episode 349 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.
One issue that frequently comes up in my YouTube video comments and email messages is the subject of weekly planning and it taking too long.
It’s taken me a while to see how this might be happening, but a recent coaching call pointed me in the right direction.
The issue is the difference between what David Allen calls the Weekly Review and planning a week.
The Getting Things Done Weekly Review is, about looking backwards. You spend a lot of time looking at what you have done on individual projects.
Given that in GTD, anything requiring two or more steps is a project and that by following that definition, you are going to have between, and I quote from the Getting Things Done book, thirty and hundred and fifty projects at any one time, is it any wonder weekly reviews take so long.
This is why I do not call my planning session a weekly review. Instead, I am planning the week, not reviewing my work. The word “review”, at least to me, suggests looking at something that happened in the past.
Yet, planning is about looking ahead. What’s happened has happened. What matters is what you do in the following seven days, and that will be contingent on appointments and commitments you have in those seven days.
So, without further ado, let me turn you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.
This week’s question comes from Greg. Greg asks, hi Carl, I’m struggling with doing my weekly plan. I’ve taken your advice to do it on a Saturday morning, but it still takes me almost two hours. Are there any secrets to getting it down to less than an hour?
Hi Greg, thank you for your question.
The question I would start with is, “Are you planning the week or looking back at the week just gone?
If you are following the Time Sector System, one routine task I recommend is to give yourself ten minutes before you close out the day to process your task manager’s inbox.
Processing your inbox is about asking three questions:
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